THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET

Sidney Franklin's first screen version of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", (he remade it again in 1957), is a ridiculously entertaining period piece about the blossoming romance between the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, (Fredric March and Norma Shearer, both excellent in their very Hollywood way), and how finally Elizabeth and the rest of the Barrett clan, (there were nine of them), rebelled against their tyrannical father, (a superb Charles Laughton, at the time only three years older than Shearer).

It was a very typical prestige production of the period. Irving G. Thalberg was the producer and he obviously chose it as a vehicle for the missus, (he was married to Shearer at the time), but it's almost stolen by Maureen O'Sullivan, surprisingly good as one of the Barrett girls and Una O'Connor is a delight, gliding across the room as if on wheels. The source was a play by Rudolph Besier and it's the kind of thing that would have gone down a treat on the London and Broadway stage, the archetypical 'well-made-play'. Yes, it's decidedly old-fashioned and very talkative and unlikely to appeal to today's audiences but it's also very good, a little on the camp side certainly but a very fine example of just how good the studio system could be at its best.